When God Tests Your Faith
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Genesis 12:10-20
Do you want God to be more real to you?
Do you want to have a deeper encounter with God?
If you do, He’s going to have to deepen your faith. Which means He’s going to have to increase your trust in Him. And the only way that you’re going to learn to trust the Lord on a deeper level is by testing.
Why does God test us?
God tests us so that we can learn about ourselves and our deficiencies. He wants us to prove that we have the faith that we claim that we have, and when we fail, He has the opportunity to show us in real time who we are and who we are not.
The reason He has to do this is because we are stubborn, and we will never come to the conclusion that there is something wrong with us unless He has the data to back it up! And before God can use us the way He wants to use us, we have to prove our faith in Him by our actions.
Could you imagine taking a ride on an airplane that was never tested?
The First Surgery
There was a man who was getting ready for surgery and the doctor walks in, and the doctor looks at the man and says, “Are you feeling ok?”
The man says, “Well, doc, I’m going to be honest, this is my first surgery and I’m just real nervous about it.”
The doctor said, “Hey, don’t worry about it, we all get nervous, it’s my first surgery too!”
God is going to test our faith! He wants to test us so that we grow to trust Him more and more. Then we can look at the struggling Christian who is having his heart operated on for the first time, and we can say, “Don’t worry, this isn’t my first surgery, and your situation has not taken God off guard!”
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials,
that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,
If God tests us to increase our faith, what we are going to experience when He tests us?
I. Experience a Crisis
I. Experience a Crisis
Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land.
God tells Abraham to get out of His country to a land that He will show him…and now there’s a famine.
Some of you have just become Christians, and some of you have been Christians for a long time and are just now getting serious about your devotion to God, and some of you have just now rededicated your life to God.
I want to tell you that if you think you’re not going to experience famine and crisis in the Christian life, somebody lied to you. Sometimes when we follow God, He tests us to see if we are going to trust Him in a crisis.
A. A Crisis is Confusing
A. A Crisis is Confusing
When we follow God, but we end up in hard times, we get confused.
We think, “God why!?”
B. A Crisis is Challenging
B. A Crisis is Challenging
If it wasn’t challenging then it wouldn’t be a crisis.
If the money was there it wouldn’t be a crisis of faith to continue tithing.
If your health was there it wouldn’t be a crisis to have to praise God in the worship service and at home.
If your family and your marriage was perfect, it wouldn’t be a crisis when it’s time to go to church on Sunday.
But God is testing your faith, not for your demise, but God is testing your faith so that your faith becomes rock-solid. He wants to know that you’re going to trust Him with your last dollar. He wants to know that you’re going to praise Him on the hospital bed. He wants to know that you’re going to be faithful to praise Him in the midst of heart ache.
So that, you will learn to overcome by the power of God in every situation.
C. A Crisis is All-Consuming
C. A Crisis is All-Consuming
When we experience a crisis, it’s all we can think about. It dominates our hearts and our minds.
But God doesn’t want circumstance and crisis to dominate our hearts and our minds.
HE wants to dominate our hearts and our minds!
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Friend, when He dominates your heart and your mind, the peace of God enters in, and the crisis slowly begins to fade.
II. Experience a Temptation
II. Experience a Temptation
Every time God tests our faith, we are going to be tempted to go back to operating how we used to operate, and that’s exactly what Abraham did.
A. Abraham’s Decisions
A. Abraham’s Decisions
1. To Compromise
1. To Compromise
Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land.
God just called Abraham out of the old life. He just called him out of idolatry, and now, because things aren’t going his way, he decides he’s going down to the pit of sin we know as Egypt.
In the Bible, Egypt always represents sin and the power of the world. When God is establishing the kings of the Old Testament, He tells those kings in Deut 17, “Don’t you go down to Egypt and get riches, horses, or women. It’s going to ruin the nation.”
King Solomon goes disobeys this, goes down there to Egypt, and the wives that he illegitimately had drove him to allow idol worship to happen in Israel. And as a result, the entire nation of Israel split in two.
Abraham is going to do the same thing. He’s going down to Egypt. Going back to the way that things were.
While he was down in Egypt, he amassed all the riches of the world and he got a servant named Hagar. Eventually Hagar would give birth to Abraham’s sons, and that child produced an entire nation that hated Israel and all of the sons of Sarah.
Friend, a series of compromises always opens the door to a lifetime of consequences.
2. To Calculate
2. To Calculate
And it came to pass, when he was close to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “Indeed I know that you are a woman of beautiful countenance.
Therefore it will happen, when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live.
Please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that I may live because of you.”
He’s headed back to the former way of life, and he knows that he is going somewhere that he doesn’t belong, but instead of being wise and saying, “I don’t need to go there, I need to trust the Lord where I am,” he starts to scheme, and he starts to justify.
He gets so sick and twisted that he tells everyone his wife is his sister. That takes some mental gymnastics for both of them!
When you know that what you are doing isn’t right, when that lump swells up in your throat, and the Holy Spirit of God says, ‘Don’t do that’, don’t start calculating, don’t start justifying…right then it is time to repent and get back to the Lord before you do something you’re not supposed to do.
3. To Commit Sin
3. To Commit Sin
So it was, when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful.
The princes of Pharaoh also saw her and commended her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken to Pharaoh’s house.
He treated Abram well for her sake. He had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
Because Abraham sinned, he damaged his testimony.
Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’? I might have taken her as my wife. Now therefore, here is your wife; take her and go your way.”
There is Pharoah, the lord of all that is ungodly, and he is scolding God’s man! What a failure!
We think that we can play around with sin, we think that we can play around with temptation and not hurt those around us, but we don’t know how deeply we hurt God and others when we sin.
Something happened that day…Lot, the nephew of Abraham witnessed all of this, and that sent him down a path of destruction where he believed that being a hypocrite was alright.
There are people in your life that are following your lead. And if you are living a life of open and unrepentant sin, then you’re telling those following you that sin is alright, and it’s not.,
B. Dealing with Temptations
B. Dealing with Temptations
1. By Trusting
1. By Trusting
If Abraham would have never had a failure of faith, then he would have never gone down to Egypt in the first place.
If he would have had a heart that said, “I know this famine looks bad, but the Lord brought us here and the Lord is going to provide.” Then he would have never even considered going down to Egypt.
Abraham had exactly what we have. He had the Word of God. And if Abraham would have simply trusting in the Word of God, he would have overcome the temptation.
If you in your life, will simply trust in the Word of God, then you’ll have victory over temptation.
2. By Obeying
2. By Obeying
It’s not real trust unless its followed up by action. If you say you trust in God’s word, then you need to show it by how you live.
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;
for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
God’s word in the mirror. If we will look intently in the word of God, and then act in faith to do the word of God, we will overcome.
III. Experience God’s Grace
III. Experience God’s Grace
Grace means “unmerited favor.”
In our failures, if we will ask God to forgive us in faith, then He will give us His grace.
What are the effects of God’s grace in our lives?
A. Grace Causes Repentance
A. Grace Causes Repentance
Then Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, to the South.
Abraham, after getting scolded by the baddest man on the planet said, “You know, maybe it’s time for me to get back to trusting in the God that called me.”
Friend, that’s called repentance.
Repentance is more than just a change of mind, repentance is a change of heart, it is a change of person. It is a change that is carried out in the power of God unto the glory of God.
You’ll Never Bat 1.000
In baseball, when a person gets up to bat, their ability to hit the ball is measured by something called a batting average. If they were to have a perfect record at hitting the ball, it would be said of them that they bat 1.000.
If they hit the ball half of the time, .500, etc.
Our weakness as Christians comes when we expect to bat 1.000.
You’re never going to bat 1.000 as a Christian. In fact, you’re not even qualified to get up to the plate. Jesus is the one Who takes the plate and He knocks it out of the park every time.
You need to know how to repent, and you need to be good at it.
1. Repent Instantly
1. Repent Instantly
Don’t hide from God.
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
2. Repent Intently
2. Repent Intently
It’s not repentance if it’s half-hearted.
“Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”
So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.
In that day, when the people wanted to express repentance and sorrow, they would tear their garments. And God says, “Don’t just simply tear your garments, but your hearts.
Repentance is an intentional and intense process that causes us to “rend” our hearts (lit. break our heart in pieces.”
3. Repent Insistently
3. Repent Insistently
Don’t take no for an answer.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope.
That means, “I’m not going to stop praying until I know that I am forgiven and clenased.”
B. Restoration
B. Restoration
And he went on his journey from the South as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
This means that once he repented “in faith” (by taking action), that he was restored to his former standing. When we ask God to forgive us, He cleanses us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
A confession is more than just a verbal expression but it is that heart change we are talking about. When we repent through confession, the Bible says that there is restoration.
C. Rejoicing
C. Rejoicing
And there Abram called on the name of the Lord.
He began to rejoice and to “worship” God.
Worshipping God means consider Him in everything that we do.
the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
This is our reason for rejoicing!
Conclusion
Conclusion
When you want to grow closer to God, you’re going to experience testings and crisis. And if you fail, I want you to know that God’s grace is sufficient for you, to carry you through!
